Asish | Product and UX Designer

Web dashboard · Solo designer · Self-initiated concept · 48-hour sprint

Pulse: Planning Design Work by Energy, Not Hours

Pulse: Preventing Burnout through Energy Logic

A resource-planning concept that weights tasks by cognitive load, so a design manager can see who is close to overload before assigning more work.

The Problem.

Most studio tools plan by hours. If a designer has four free hours, they look available. But four hours of brand strategy drains far more than four hours of file prep, so a calendar can look fine while a person is already stretched. Managers usually find out when a deadline slips.

I see this in my own work, designing for four to five brands at once. Pulse was a 48-hour sprint to test one idea: what if planning tools measured energy instead of time?

Who it's for: design managers who assign work across a small team. Designers get a simpler view of their own day.

I see this in my own work, designing for four to five brands at once. Pulse was a 48-hour sprint to test one idea: what if planning tools measured energy instead of time?

Who it's for: design managers who assign work across a small team. Designers get a simpler view of their own day.

01 / THE LOGIC

Shifting the metric from Time to Energy.

WEIGHT 1–3

Administrative /Maintenance

WEIGHT 4–7

Implementation / UI Design

WEIGHT 8–10

Strategy / Deep Creative

Every task gets a weight from 1 to 10. Admin and maintenance score 1–3, implementation and UI work 4–7, strategy and deep creative work 8–10.

Each designer has 10 points a day: 0–4 is Available (green), 5–8 is Focused (yellow), 9–10 is At capacity (red). A new brand identity session (8) plus two file exports (1 + 1) fills the day, even if the calendar still shows free hours.

Weights come from two people. The manager sets one when creating the task, and the designer can adjust it when they start (see 04). I set the bands from my own experience; they're the first thing I’d test.

02 / THE INTERFACE

Seeing team capacity at a glance

The dashboard opens on three numbers: total team load, how many designers are over capacity, and energy left to assign.
A manager can see where the pressure is without opening a spreadsheet. Below, each designer has a capacity bar and a status label, so colour is never the only signal.

03 / THE PREVENTION ENGINE

Adding friction before overload

Assigning a task opens a short form with a live capacity meter, so the manager sees how the new task changes that designer's day before assigning it. If it would push them over, Pulse shows better options: someone with space today, or the same designer tomorrow. The manager can still assign anyway, but adds a reason, which the designer sees with the task.

My first idea was to lock a designer at red. I chose a warning instead: in a deadline crunch a hard lock just gets worked around, while a better option on screen nudges without taking the decision away.

Assigning Logo Exploration to John shows his day going from 3/10 to 11/10, with better options underneath.

“Assign anyway” asks for a reason, which John sees with the task.

04 / THE OUTCOME

A say in their own load

Designers see the same number their manager sees, for example “You’re over capacity today (11/10)”. When the day isn’t working, “Request re-balancing” lets them say why, such as waiting on files, and pick the task. The task shows as Blocked, and the manager gets the reason instead of chasing for an update. The pencil lets designers adjust a weight when a task turns out bigger or smaller than planned.

Sam flags what’s getting in the way and picks the task.

The task shows as Blocked, and Sam can see the request is with Alex.

Ticking off a task removes its points, so the bar drops back to green as work is finished or moved: “Your workload is low today (3/10)”. Tasks are ticked off manually for now; later, uploading the final file could complete them automatically.

Before: 11/10, over capacity.

After: Brand Identity Refresh is done and Sam’s day is back to 3/10.

05 / CONCLUSION

What I haven't tested yet

This is a 48-hour concept, built on my own experience.

Four questions decide whether it works:

Do the bands match how tired people actually feel at the end of a day?

Does the two-step weighting (manager sets, designer adjusts) feel fair to both sides?

Will designers see Pulse as support or as monitoring?

Can people game it by under- or over-rating tasks?

Next Steps

Interviews with design managers and designers are in progress, followed by a 5-person usability test of the assign flow. This case study will be rebuilt with what they show.

AsishDesignWorks

Product designer

AsishDesignWorks

Product designer